Summary

At the outset of the chapter, Duckworth speaks about her finding that contestants at the National Spelling Bee who practiced more tended to perform better. However, she has also found people who spend years in their jobs without improving. She cites the Japanese word "kaizen," which means "continuous improvement." She cites the research of cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson who has examined how experts develop and hone their skills. He has found that as experts improve, their learning curve slows down after a while. In his studies, the best violinists, for example, practiced about 10,000 hours over 10 years. Dancer Martha Graham also stated that becoming a mature dancer takes about 10 years. In other words, for many fields, it takes 10,000 hours of practice over 10 years to become an expert.

In the next section, Duckworth explains that Ericsson has also found that experts practice in...